MRSA Notes

Duke University has released its study of the efficacy of Daptomycin (brand name Cubicin), a drug recently approved by the FDA for marketing to patients. This is the newest drug in the fight against MRSA.

The results showed daptomycin was as effective as standard therapy, Fowler said. Daptomycin was more successful at eliminating drug-resistant S. aureus, at 44.4 percent success versus 31.8 percent. However, the standard therapy slightly outperformed daptomycin for S. aureus without drug resistance, at 48.6 percent success versus 44.6 percent. Neither of these differences was statistically significant, Fowler said. Both types of treatment took roughly the same amount of time — eight or nine days — to clear an MRSA infection.

“Having another drug in our armamentarium against S. aureus not only will give physicians a new treatment option, but also may help slow the current troubling spread of drug resistance among these bacteria,” Fowler said.

The study also was designed to assess daptomycin’s safety, because the doses given to study participants were higher than dosages approved for skin infections (four milligrams per kilogram of body weight). Previous studies performed before FDA approval of daptomycin had suggested that higher doses might cause significant side effects in humans.

Daptomycin proved to be easier on the kidneys than standard therapy, Fowler said. The researchers suggest this probably is due to the use of gentamicin in the study group, given that drug’s potent renal toxicity. Patients receiving daptomycin experienced fewer adverse events that caused kidney impairment (6.7 percent versus 18.1 percent). Daptomycin also affected kidney performance less than standard therapy, as measured by the organ’s ability to filter creatinine protein from the bloodstream. Source

My husband took this drug for several weeks while he was in the hospital, while it was still in testing, and the moderator of our MRSA forum has been taking it for 6 months or so. What that means to you, I am not sure, but for us, we were very thankful for its existence, because Marshall is/was allergic to a great many antibiotics (vancomycin included), and this one worked for him.

Education, MRSA Drugs, MRSA in the U.S., Research and Development

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